Historically the meter readings that measure consumption of utility resources such as water, gas, or electricity has been accomplished manually by human meter readers at the customers' premises. The relatively recent advances in this area include collection of data by telephone lines, radio transmission, walk-by, or drive-by reading systems using radio communications between the meters and the meter reading devices. Although some of these methods require close physical proximity to the meters, they have become more desirable than the manual reading and recording of the consumption levels. Over the last few years, there has been a concerted effort to automate meter reading through the implementation of devices and messaging systems that allow data to flow from the meter to a host computer system without human intervention. These systems are referred to in the art as Automated Meter Reading (AMR) systems.
In an AMR system, an Encoder Receiver Transmitter (“ERT”) may be implemented within a utility meter in order to encode and transmit data utilizing radio-based communications. The ERT is a meter interface device attached to the meter, which either periodically transmits utility consumption data (“bubble-up” ERTs) or receives a “wake up” polling signal containing a request for their meter information from a collector (e.g., a fixed transceiver unit, a transceiver mounted in a passing vehicle, a handheld unit, etc.).
Transmissions of meter readings from an ERT are typically encoded as “packetized” data. In the present application, the term “packet” is intended to encompass packets, frames, cells or any other method used to encapsulate data for transmission between remote devices. As understood in the art, packets typically maintain a plurality of fields as well as a preamble and trailer to identify the beginning and end of the packet. In this regard, existing packet formats and related systems typically include at least one field that identifies the category of utility meter (gas, water, electricity etc.) that is reporting a meter reading. However, these aspects of meter messaging systems have not developed in ways to account for the expanded functionality and diversity in the types of ERTs in use. For example, while existing meter messaging systems identify ERT (“endpoint”) type, endpoints are not readily classified based on their ability to satisfy particular commands. A utility service provider may not be able to readily determine all of the capabilities of a particular endpoint from data in a meter reading. The enhanced services desired by customers and utility service providers will only continue to increase the diversity in the types of endpoints being installed in AMR systems. The limitations in existing meter messaging systems may limit continued development of these enhanced services.